To those thinking of giving up

I spent Christmas day watching a marathon of Anthony Bourdain specials. An imperfect, broken hero of mine. He took his own life and the world is poorer for it. I don’t judge him for his final action, any more than I would judge any one person for any one action in the vast tapestry of their lives. That’s what life is, you know. A tapestry. A story. After years of incarceration, surrounded by some of the most marginalized members in our society, I’ve come to realize that every life has value. Every life is a story, the culmination of 3 plus billion years of unimaginable occurrence, a story that has heroes and villains, tragedy and transcendence, pain in buckets but laughter like unexpected spring rain. You are part of the fabric of the universe and every action you take is a declaration of defiance against the void and a burning stamp upon history.

I know that you feel alone. That the loneliness sometimes becomes so great that it blots out the sun. That no one understands what you’re going through. Who you really are. And there is nothing more hostile to the heart than feeling that you are alone, and nothing more essential to a life than being seen. A tribe, of two, of many, of love without avarice or fear.

But the thing is, you’re not alone. I’m here, writing to you, through razor wire and concrete, across thousands of miles or just over the hill. How is this possible, if you are alone? How can I know these things. The way the grey of the world can lay on your moments like a caul, or how the moment of consciousness from sleep can feel like fresh agony at a world you thought you had escaped?

Is there any doubt that I can know these things and not understand your sorrow? That you are not seen? There’s more. The ones like you and I outnumber the stars you can see in the sky from the back of a pickup truck on a North Dakota night. You only need to seek them out. Your tribe is out there. They need you as much as you need them. If you think life has no meaning take meaning in that. Don’t let your story end quite yet.
Keep weaving.